Chapter 32 The Truth at Last—Or Some of It #2
She said, “I’ll fetch plates,” and I helped carry glasses, a pitcher of water, a bread knife.
Something was wrong with her left arm—it had an odd angle to it at the elbow.
She said, “There’s the end of a bit of cheese as well, and some marmalade,” and put them on the table.
“One can’t help still wishing for butter. ”
I said, “Excuse me, but—would you have a place to wash up?” To tell the truth, I had to relieve myself rather badly.
I was having my period, which is not a nice thing to have as a refugee.
Only rags to use, and so few places to wash them.
Modesty rebelled at the public nature of that washing, but what was one to do?
Also, although I didn’t suffer as much as my mother had from my bit of hemophilia, my period had been a painful trial even before we’d left the palace, and now?
No nun was going to care, when she was telling you to leave the convent because you’d been there too long, that your entire midsection and back ached terribly.
Our journeys had been remarkably free of hot-water bottles, too.
I can still remember what a relief it was to wash my hands and face, to have a chair to sit in and bread and cheese to eat. The woman, whose name was Frau Adelberg, made a pot of tea as well, and we thanked her again and again.
We exchanged stories, as one did in those days.
We told ours, which wasn’t very true at all, and she told hers, which probably was.
Her husband was fighting somewhere—for once to the west rather than the east—and she’d had no news of him for weeks—“But the Americans and English, one hears, are taking prisoners, and feeding them, too. Not like the Russians, those barbarians.” Dr. Becker and I looked at each other—even from the little we’d heard, the Germans had treated their own Russian prisoners very badly indeed—but it would have been impolite to point that out, especially since she told us with her next breath that her son had been lost “somewhere on the Russian front. The war is too cruel, but it’ll be over soon, and—”
A voice from the doorway. “Mutti? I’ve finished my lessons.”
“Come in, then, and meet our guests,” she said. “My son Matti.”
Matti was a small fellow—most children were small these days—and, I thought, a little younger than Gerhardt.
The two boys looked at each other shyly, and then Matti climbed up on a chair, accepted a piece of bread with much less desperation than we’d shown, and told Gerhardt, “I have a tin of soldiers in my bedroom. Would you like to see?”
“Yes, please,” Gerhardt said politely.
Matti climbed down again, stuffing the last bite of bread into his mouth, and said, “Come on, then!”
Dr. Becker said, “We shouldn’t—” and Frau Adelberg said, “Oh, let them play. Matti has little enough chance of it now. And with the Americans nearly at our doorstep, he’s likely to have even less chance. A day or two, they’re saying, no more. I need to put out my flag before it’s too late.”
“Your flag?” I asked, even as my heart leaped at those magical words: The Americans. This had to be the end. The Allies had carried all before them for months now. Why would this be any different?
“I’m Swiss,” she said. “Can’t you tell?”
“Oh.” I didn’t say, I thought you had a speech impediment, as if you have potatoes in your mouth, and I don’t understand the Bavarian accent well anyway. “Will the Swiss flag help, then?”
“We’ll soon find out, won’t we?” she said.
“And not a moment too soon. When the soldiers come home, I’ll be able to offer good bread again, as long as we can get the flour for it, and it’s anybody’s guess how much that will cost. This arm of mine!
It’s meant to get better, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. ”
Dr. Becker said, “What happened, if I may ask?” He had his “doctor look”: a sort of quickening of interest, like a carpenter who sees a sagging roofline and longs to put it right.
“Oh,” she said, “I was buying flour—the effort that is now, and bringing it back, too, in a cart chained to the back of my bicycle! The man wouldn’t even deliver it.
No petrol, he said, and no horses, either.
How one took things for granted before. Well, there I was, out in the open, and there was an air-raid.
I couldn’t get to shelter and was struck by a piece of shrapnel.
Only my arm was broken, so it could have been worse.
That was on the second of January. They say ninety percent of Nuremberg was destroyed in an hour, did you know?
But it was very bad in Dresden too, one hears.
Na ja, we’ve all suffered. I lost my bicycle, though—its frame was terribly twisted.
And the flour, which was almost worse. The use of my arm, too, at least for now.
I don’t think that doctor knew what he was doing.
I smelled Schnapps on him most distinctly. ”
“I’m a doctor myself, as it happens,” Dr. Becker said. Brave of him, but perhaps he did feel safer in the anonymity of this place, so far from Dresden and anybody we knew. “If you’ll permit me to examine it?”
Frau Adelberg said, “Of course,” and he washed up again—he was as scrupulous about cleanliness as it was possible to be under our circumstances—stood before her, and felt along her arm, his eyes looking off into the distance as his fingers probed delicately.
A great deal of “Hmmm,” and “Do you feel pain when I press here?” until at last he stood back and said, “Yes, badly set and poorly mended. You’ll need another operation, once one can get such things again.
Until then, I’m afraid that arm won’t be of much use. ”
Frau Adelberg’s good-natured face fell. “Oh. Well, I thought so. A one-armed baker’s about as useful as a one-armed paper hanger! I can steady the dough with it, but as for kneading …” She sighed.
I became bold, then. “I can bake,” I said.
“I’ve baked all the bread for my household this past year, and there were nearly twenty of us.
Wheat and rye, Brotchen, sourdough from a culture—if one has a culture, of course, but surely one could borrow some?
That’s very useful when yeast is hard to come by—and potato bread.
I’ve come to despise potatoes in general, but potato dumplings and potato bread are a different matter, aren’t they? I also know Pumpernickel.”
Frau Adelberg said, “I don’t know. There’s little enough to eat for Matti and me, and growing less all the time. On the other hand—”
“Dr. Becker can help, too,” I said. “He can carry things and, oh, perform so many useful tasks! He can even cook, or so he says. Better than me, at any rate. And use his medical skills, too. People will pay in food if not in cash, if only we can stop somewhere long enough to allow it.” Dr. Becker was staring at me, and with a start of horror, I realized I’d forgotten to use his correct name.
How had I been so careless? “I’m sorry. I meant Herr Kolbe. No, I meant—” I stopped in confusion.
Dr. Becker said, “If the Americans are nearly here, the war must be all but over, at least for us. They won’t leave the Nazi structures in place, you can be sure of that.
And I must allow this lady to make up her own mind if we’re seeking shelter here.
I won’t make that mistake twice. It’s possible I may even be of service. I heard last night that—” He stopped.
“Yes?” Frau Adelberg said. Her tone was cautious, but who could blame her, with these imposters in her sitting room?
“I am a Jew,” Dr. Becker said. “I was a professor at the University of Dresden before the Jews were forced out, and am the author of a well-known medical textbook as well as having directed the burn ward at the largest hospital in the city. The burn wards must be very busy now. The Nazis, though …” He waved an expressive hand.
“Well, you know the rest. I’ve been able to practice my profession only secretly, among my own people, and without the proper medicines.
I can possibly be of help here, though..
If the Americans are really coming, there will be wounds enough.
And, I think, paid work for a doctor under their administration, even if he’s a Jew.
There are Jewish soldiers serving among them, one hears, and I imagine Jewish doctors, too.
We Jews are very good doctors. We have the habit of study, you see, and perhaps an extra dash of compassion, for the Talmud says, ‘If you save one life, it’s as if you saved the whole world.
’ A doctor may be a useful person to have around the house, particularly if he can earn some money. ”
“But Herr Doktor,” Frau Adelberg said, seeming truly stunned by this admission, “all the Jews have been taken away. How—”
“My wife,” Dr. Becker said, “was Aryan. That protected us from the worst for a time, although not lately. She died, you see.” He sighed.
“Of course, you can run now to the mayor or directly to the Gestapo, and they can take me if they like, though I’ll do my best to escape and will deny it if they catch me.
I suspect they’ll have their hands full very soon, though. ”
“Or,” Frau Adelberg said, “they’ll be the ones behind bars. I have no love for the Gestapo. I wouldn’t turn over my worst enemy to them, and what have you done, after all?”
“Killed Christ, perhaps,” Dr. Becker said gravely, but there was a twinkle in his eye, as if he were coming back to life somehow.
“Pfui,” Frau Adelberg said. “The Romans killed Christ, and it was all a very long time ago, and I’m Swiss. No, as I said, it’s just—there really is very little to eat.”
I said, “I have something I can sell.” Again, impulsively, but what choice did we have? It was that or starve. Gerhardt was so thin and tired, and I’d seen Dr. Becker looking at him with worry and sorrow. How would I forgive myself for clinging to my treasures if Gerhardt starved?
“Maybe,” Frau Adelberg said, “but who has money to buy it?”
“The Americans will,” I said. “Of that I’m sure. Everyone knows they have money. When the Americans come, I’ll sell it to one of them.”
Frau Adelberg said, “I should ask to see it, of course.” I hesitated, and she asked, “Is it stolen?”
“No,” I said. “No. It’s an heirloom of my family.
” How foolish I felt for having told her!
Even if she wouldn’t take it herself—and I believed she wouldn’t; kind people, I’ve found, can’t wantonly hurt others like that—all she had to do was tell the wrong person.
What was in my coat lining was worth risking the hangman for.
It was, I had enough knowledge of human nature now to know, worth killing for.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. How hard it is to choose when there are no good choices left!
Dr. Becker said, “She’s telling the truth, you know. I’ve seen the heirloom. It does exist. And if Daisy says she’ll sell it, she’ll do it. I knew her parents well. Both very fine people.” You’ll notice that he didn’t give away my secret, but then, he’d had more practice hiding.
“Then,” Frau Adelberg said, “I suppose you’d better stay. Heaven knows I need the help. Even if I have to direct you every step of the way,” she told me, “at least you have two good arms.”
“Yes,” I said, “I do. A strong back and a willing heart, too, and enough money to feed us for a couple of days, anyway. After that?” I shrugged. After that, we wait for the Americans.”
“We may all be dead ourselves,” Frau Adelberg said. “And then our troubles will truly be over, no?”
“No,” I said, “we aren’t going to die. Not after we’ve come so far. We’re going to live.”